Money and Love: Part II
Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen - the recap
Welcome to Part II of our Pride and Prejudice recap! If you haven’t read the first part and would like to you can find it here.
So you may recall that when we left off, the Bennet family were awaiting the arrival of Mr Collins, the cousin who is due to inherit their house because he has an PENIS.
Mr Collins intends to pity-marry one of the Bennet sisters to make up for the inheritance situation. Unfortunately for everyone, he is not an alluring prospect: twenty-five, tall and heavyset, he has a ‘grave and stately’ air—basically just picture the president of the Young Liberals at your uni campus and you’ll have him. His conversation consists of ‘pompous nothings’—mostly greasy flattery of whoever he’s talking to or excessive namedropping of his patroness, Lady Catherine de Bourgh.
One morning, they all take a walk into the local village, Meryton. The girls’ attention is caught by a military officer they meet walking in the street, Mr Wickham, who unlike Mr Collins has the great advantage of being both a charming conversationalist and, more importantly, smoking hot.
While they are standing around chatting, who should come along but Mr Bingley and Mr Darcy. Elizabeth notices that Darcy and Wickham turn pale at the sight of one another, and is immediately desperate to know what their deal is; our girl clearly has a taste for DRAMA.
At dinner that night, Lizzy sits next to Wickham, and it doesn’t take much cajoling to get the story out of him. According to Wickham, his dad worked for Darcy’s family and they have known each other since childhood. Darcy’s father had a soft spot for Wickham and left him an income in his will—but two years after Mr Darcy Snr croaked, Darcy Jnr cut Wickham off.
Lizzy is appalled. ‘I had supposed him to be despising his fellow-creatures in general, but did not suspect him of descending to such malicious revenge, such injustice, such inhumanity as this!’, she says, which coincidentally was exactly my response when my gym trainer said we would be finishing our session this week with a tabata-style ab work out.
Wickham also has some gossip concerning Mr Collins’ beloved patroness, Lady Chris Catherine de Bourgh, who turns out to be Mr Darcy’s aunt. Apparently, Lady Cath plans for Darcy to marry her daughter…i.e., his first cousin…which according to this Wikipedia page is…um, totally fine and normal?? Who knew.
Not long afterwards, news arrives that there will be a ball at Netherfield (Mr Bingley’s house). Lizzy is excited because she’s hoping to see Wickham there, and gets extra dressed up. Lamentably, however, Wickham doesn’t show, and Lizzy is forced to dance with the deplorably unsexy Mr Collins.
Just as she escapes Mr Collins, Elizabeth is surprised by Mr Darcy showing up at her elbow, asking for a dance. As they begin dancing, the conversation is awkward, and Lizzy gives Darcy a hard time about his lack of banter: ‘It is your turn to say something now, Mr Darcy. — I talked about the dance, and you ought to make some kind of remark on the size of the room, or the number of couples.’ She also brings up Mr Wickham, but Darcy changes the subject. He tries again to make conversation, but Lizzy is openly hostile—she basically tells him she knows about his bad character—and they part in chilly silence.
Soon after they separate, Mr Bingley’s sister, Caroline (who has designs on Mr Darcy herself and has never been very nice to Lizzy) comes over to tell her that whatever she has heard from Mr Wickham about Mr Darcy is rubbish. Elizabeth doesn’t believe her. ‘You are mistaken if you expect to influence me by such a paltry attack as this’, she thinks to herself, which is coincidentally the exact thing I thought when my gym trainer suggested that a diet of pure carbohydrates was suboptimal for a peri-menopausal woman.
The rest of the ball is spoiled by a series of embarrassing moves by Lizzy’s relatives. First, Mr Collins gauchely introduces himself to Darcy, overemphasising his relationship with Lady de Bourgh and generally acting like a nincompoop. Then Lizzy’s mother blathers on within earshot of Darcy about her plans for Jane and Mr Bingley, and how she hopes that Jane’s marrying so well will throw her other daughters in the way of rich men. Next, Lizzy’s little sister Mary, who greatly overestimates her own musical ability, performs a song for the party, and is only persuaded to stop when her father interrupts her with this iconically cutting line: ‘That will do extremely well, child. You have delighted us long enough.’
It’s all extremely cringeworthy. Towards the end, Elizabeth gloomily reflects that ‘had her family made an agreement to expose themselves as much as they could during the evening, it would have been impossible for them to play their parts with more spirit, or finer success’.
Alas, there is more mortification in store for her. The next day, to Mrs Bennet’s great excitement, Mr Collins takes Lizzy aside and asks her to marry him. His proposal is typically dull: ‘My reasons for marrying are, first, that I think it a right thing for every clergyman…Secondly, that I am convinced it will add very greatly to my happiness; and thirdly…that it is the particular advice and recommendation of the very noble lady whom I have the honour of calling patroness.’
When Lizzy can finally get a word in she gives him a polite thanks, but no thanks, and Collins is like, oh, you ladies! Always saying no when you mean yes. No matter how much she insists, he refuses to believe her refusal, and she gets increasingly frustrated: ‘[t]o accept [your proposal] is absolutely impossible. My feelings in every respect forbid it. Can I speak plainer?’
Mrs Bennet, desperate to see all her children settled, is furious that Lizzy has turned him down and tries to enlist Mr Bennet’s help in changing her mind. Happily, Mr B is firmly on team no-fucking-way.
The next day, some bad news arrives for Elizabeth’s sister Jane in a letter from Caroline Bingley. Apparently the whole Netherfield household—including Mr Bingley and Darcy—have up and gone to London without any intention of coming back. Worse, the letter suggests that Bingley’s family are hoping he will hook up with Mr Darcy’s younger sister, Georgiana. Jane—who is by now properly in love with Bingley—is crestfallen, but Elizabeth thinks Caroline is bluffing. She is confident that Bingley returns Jane’s affections, and won’t be able to stay away.
The Bennets and Mr Collins go over to the Lucas family’s for lunch, and Mr Collins spends the entire time talking to Lizzy’s sensible friend Charlotte Lucas. Lizzy thinks her friend is just doing her a favour by keeping him distracted, but she has misread the situation. The next day—just three days after proposing to Lizzy—Mr Collins proposes to Charlotte! Crazy!
Then things get even crazier, because Charlotte…accepts.
Charlotte doesn’t like Mr Collins any more than Lizzy does, finding him ‘neither sensible nor agreeable; his society…irksome, and his attachment to her…imaginary’. But she has little choice: she is plain, she has no money, and, at twenty-seven(!) she’s getting a bit long in the tooth. Although she doesn’t think highly of either men or marriage itself, she knows it’s the best chance she has of avoiding poverty.
Elizabeth is horrified—she thinks her friend has ‘sacrificed every better feeling to worldly advantage’, ‘disgracing herself’ in a humiliating marriage to an idiot. She cannot bear the idea of her friend marrying such a ‘conceited, pompous, narrow-minded, silly man’.
Her response is a bit judgmental, if you ask me—Lizzy, like Charlotte, has no fortune, but she’s younger, prettier, and supremely charming. She can afford to dream of a marriage based on romantic love. Charlotte cannot.
I will leave this recap there for now—would you believe we’re only half-way through the book??? Man, this novel is action packed. I may not get to part 3 next week as my novel is coming out and I may be a bit stressed and busy desperately refreshing Goodreads to see if anyone is saying nice things about it. Hopefully I will see some of you at the launch!
Until next time,
Eleanor xx
The less emotionally impressionable, meanwhile, adopt Oscar Wilde's view on the death of Little Nell – that it would take a heart of stone to listen to 'Lady in Red' and not laugh."
Good luck with the launch.